The Union of Workers of the Electric and Irrigation Industry (UTIER) denounces Governor Ricardo Rossellá’s announcement to privatize the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). The announcement demonstrates the insensitivity of this government and leaves clear that the welfare of the people is not among the interests of the current Governor.

UTIER has been consistent in denouncing the privatization plans of various government administrations and also the recent intentional slowness in the process of restoring the electrical system.

The Governor is taking advantage of the pain of thousands of people who are currently without electric power. Given the insensitivity of Governor Ricardo Rosellá of announcing the privatization of PREPA in the midst of the suffering of almost half a million Puerto Ricans who still do not have electricity, UTIER once again raises its voice in favor of the people. We have tried through our brigades to restore electric power as soon as possible, despite all the obstacles that the government, the Engineers brigade, the Board of Fiscal Control, and the upper management of PREPA have erected to try to prevent us achieving that goal.

For decades we have warned how various administrations have undermined workers and intentionally damaged the infrastructure of PREPA. This was intended to provoke the people’s discontent with the service in order to privatize our first industry, “the jewel in the crown”, to strip us-the people-of what is ours. “Because PREPA is a public good that belongs to the people and not to the politicians,” said the president of the UTIER, Angel Figueroa Jaramillo.

Figueroa Jaramillo explained how, since the 1970s, governments of the two main parties have tried to privatize PREPA. In each of these attempts, UTIER has reacted immediately, warning the people what this would mean for the country.

“We asked, how come it was possible that, facing so much devastation left by the hurricanes, that we would prioritize hiring a company such as Whitefish, which did not have the staff or experience to handle an emergency like the one we had gone through? Then we met the endless irregularities in the awarding of the contract that was signed with Whitefish and the powerful political links it has with the current US administration. Everything we said was proven to be correct and has been so in every complaint we have made over decades”, said Figueroa Jaramillo.

The President of UTIER insisted, “The position of UTIER is that electricity is a human right and not a commodity. That is what our people have realized after the ravages of hurricanes Irma and Maria, after having run out of electricity and suffering so many hardships and the loss of family members, either because they have died or had to leave the country. That is why we strongly oppose privatization in any of its expressions, whether through the transfer of assets or the transfer of management to private companies. We ask the people the following question so that they think clearly about it: If PREPA was not profitable and able to generate profits, would there be a company that wanted to acquire it?”

The president of the UTIER urged people to also remember the declarations of the Board of Fiscal Control (JCF) a year ago in which it presented the privatization of PREPA as one of its goals. “We cannot leave the heritage that belongs to us–the people-in private hands. And one of them is PREPA. Because if at some point we face another atmospheric phenomenon such as the ones to which we are exposed every year during hurricane season, we already know how the private generators AES and Ecoelectrica will react: turning off their machinery in order not to lose their investment. That’s what they did on this occasion. They are not worried about the suffering of the people. That situation cannot be repeated and if PREPA is privatized, that is what’s in store for us. Furthermore, we must not be deceived: privatization increases the electric bill and makes us more vulnerable as the people. Let’s not allow the main industry for the development of our country to be stolen from us. Let’s not wait for it to happen”, added Figueroa Jaramillo.

This is the model that has been successfully implemented by public utilities in the US.

i.e.: A municipality in San Antonio, Texas, with 2 million inhabitants, has a public power corporation that is owned by the municipality and governed by five individuals, elected by the people every 10 years. The mayor is a member but he doesn’t vote.

Power transformation

To lead the transformation of the model towards renewable energies, however kept in public hands in order to prevent the private sector from hijacking renewable energies.

Changes are necessary; selling is not, because the purpose of a public agency is service, not profit.

Prepanet and its subsidiaries

To develop Prepanet and to its promote its business potential. Prepanet is a subsidiary of PREPA that has the largest fiber optic infrastructure in Puerto Rico and was prohibited by law from further development towards increasing its revenue.

It is an important asset for the island.

Subsidies and debt

To demand government to pay its debt with PREPA for power services.

Reservoirs

Most of the reservoirs belong to AEE and they give away water for free to AAA.

There are no costs for aqueducts, but if we were to fall into private hands, the cost of water would increase the very next day.

New Labor Forum, Spring 2018, forthcoming

Puerto Rico is now at the center of the global debate about climate resiliency, the potential of renewable energy technologies, and the best way to transition away from fossil fuels. To some extent, it has compressed the struggle for the world’s energy future both geographically and temporally. The whole system was shut down by an “extreme weather event” in the form of hurricane Maria that hit the island on September 16, 2017. This scale of disruption has never happened before–not in Puerto Rico, not in the United States, and not anywhere in the modern world. What was once a discussion about the future of energy has now been transplanted firmly into the precarious present.

Hurricane Maria completely knocked out Puerto Rico’s electricity grid, leaving the island without any power. As of this writing, four months have passed and still 45 percent of the island’s population is without electricity. This is the longest power outage in US history. By mid-January 2018, only 20 percent of the island’s traffic lights were functioning. Of nearly 31,000 new utility poles ordered from the US, almost 19,000 had still not arrived. Hundreds of schools, while holding classes, were operating without electricity. i

Puerto Rico’s Public Electric Power Authority (known as PREPA), which since the mid-1970s has provided virtually all of the island’s electrical power quickly became the target of an avalanche of criticism regarding how it responded to the disaster. These criticisms inflicted fresh damage on PREPA’s already sullied reputation for poor management, neglect of infrastructure, and deep indebtedness. PREPA was also criticized for dragging its feet on the development of wind and solar power. Puerto Rico has significant wind and considerable solar potential, but only 3.3 percent of its pre-Maria power was generated by renewables. ii Oil generates 47.4 percent of Puerto Rico’s power; about 33 percent was generated by gas, and roughly 16 percent from coal-all of it imported. In 2010, the island’s legislature introduced a renewable energy target that essentially instructed PREPA to source 12 percent of energy from renewables by 2015-a target that it failed to meet. iii

Assets for Sale

On January 22nd, Puerto Rico’s governor Ricardo Rosselló announced his intention to “sell the assets” of PREPA. iv The utility, he stated, “has become a heavy burden on our people, who are now hostage to its poor service and high cost.” Selling PREPA’s assets to private companies will, said the governor, “transform the generation system into a modern, efficient, and less expensive one for the people.” It would pave the way for one “based on renewable and environmentally friendly sources… We have the opportunity not only to make a new energy system, but to be a global model.” Business representatives applauded the announcement, with one of them stating, “For many years the private sector has requested the total transformation of the energy system in Puerto Rico, which, due to its inefficiency, prevents our economic development.” v

The Sun Gods Speak

The decision to privatize PREPA was surely influenced by the actions of renewable energy interests outside of Puerto Rico, for whom Maria was a cloud with a solar lining. Indeed, a buzz of excitement swept across the green lists and blogs when, in late October, with most of the island in darkness, Tesla’s Elon Musk delivered hundreds of solar panels and energy storage batteries to Hospital del Nino in downtown San Juan near the Condado Beach area. Forever the entrepreneur, Musk chose to help a hospital in a wealthy commercial area-a politically strategic choice and a first-rate photo-op. According to one writer, “The island presented [Musk] with the perfect opportunity to test his theory that you could use solar panels and batteries to create microgrids to power people’s homes and even their cars, Teslas of course.” vi

Meanwhile, Virgin Group leader Richard Branson quickly enlisted the help of his friend Amory Lovins, arguably the founding father of the theory of “green capitalism.” In the 1970s, Lovins argued that the future scarcity of fossil fuels meant businesses should invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency in order to position themselves for the coming green bonanza. Unfortunately, the fossil fuels did not run out; instead more were found–under forests, in shale rock formations, and in deep ocean areas like the arctic. Those who invested in renewables only made money by convincing governments to directly subsidize them, to force utilities to pay above-market prices for solar and wind power-or preferably to do both.

In mid December 2017 Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) released a report called The Role of Renewable and Distributed Energy in a Resilient and Cost-Effective Energy Future for Puerto Rico .vii After consulting “stakeholders”–the majority of those listed were corporations, including Tesla–the paper made a strong case for the introduction of new energy technologies such as microgrids and energy storage systems. viii

The findings of the paper had an immediate impact on the politics of the island. This is because many of its proposals regarding microgrids and storage technologies (proposals that are hardly original) make perfect sense. But the Institute was not entertaining the idea that the island’s next system should remain publicly owned. Quite the contrary: “What is needed is a coordinated effort by the Puerto Rico government, regulatory commission, and utility to catalogue, prioritize, and competitively procure potential renewable and distributed energy projects…while supporting the least cost and highest value in the long run.” The terms “competitively procure” and “highest value” make it clear what RMI thought should happen: Hedge-fund financed private power producers, project developers, and technology companies should have more control over the island’s power generation, transmission, and distribution systems. ix

Green Colonialism?

But Governor Rosselló’s claim that the privatization of PREPA will mean that Puerto Rico will be “a global model” for a new cleaner and greener energy system will surely come back to haunt him. First of all, it is very likely there will be no full-on privatization of PREPA. No private interest is going to buy PREPA as it is–absent some backdoor deal to make the offer too good to refuse. The demand for electricity has been falling steadily as a result of recession, migration, and poverty. Furthermore, the island’s energy infrastructure is about 44 years old, compared with an average 18 years on the U.S. mainland. And the worrying prospect of more extreme weather events is not exactly an enticement for potential buyers.

So what will privatization look like? In a revealing but seemingly innocuous phrase, Rosselló’s announcement referred to “a model of privatization of power generation and a concession, term-defined, of energy distribution and transmission.” x What does “concession, term-defined” mean? Concession agreements between governments and private corporations normally include rights to use (and profit from) certain pieces of an infrastructure or service for an agreed duration. From the dawn of the colonial period, concessionary companies were used by colonial administrations all over the global South to transfer wealth from the colonized “periphery” to the colonial “core.” Puerto Rico now faces the prospect of being a source of revenue and profit for wind and solar multinationals and technology companies. These companies are not interested in providing a universal service with equal access to all. They have their eyes on providing power to those who have the capacity to pay.

It seems very likely that, if Rosselló and private renewables’ companies get their way, PREPA will be broken up (or, in privatization speak, “unbundled”) and private transmission and distribution companies will be lured to the island or be established by PREPA’s top management who, as was the case in other parts of the world where power was privatized, would see themselves transformed from public servants to corporate CEOs.

In terms of generating electrical power, the global experience has shown that wind and solar projects can only make profits by way of favorable “out of market” arrangements, such as power purchase agreements (or PPAs) between developers and the utility or another public entity, normally over a 15- or 20-year period. PPAs offer “certainties” to investors and developers, but this invariably results in higher prices for users (to cover the additional costs of private financing, profit, etc.) xi

Because Puerto Rico’s power system presently depends on imported fossil fuels, electricity costs have been higher than on the mainland. But this does not mean that private renewable energy will lead, as the governor claims, to a reduction in prices. The price will be determined by the terms of the PPAs, and if history is any guide prices will rise, not fall. And with the demand for electricity falling in Puerto Rico, this will mean every user will be required to pay more in order to cover investors’ costs and profits. This is not a reason to hold back on renewables; rather, it merely makes it imperative to reduce costs by eliminating profit and reducing the cost of borrowing capital based on commercial rates of return.

Keeping it Public, and the Role of Unions

The fight against the privatization of PREPA will be difficult. The utility does not have a reputation for providing efficient, reliable, cost-effective service. But Rosselló’s plan will take up to three years to implement, so there is time to build a broad-based campaign. The power system is not the only service threatened with privatization in Puerto Rico. The island’s political and social elite–to say nothing of the U.S. hedge funds operating on the island and members of the Fiscal Control Board–had already been looking to privatize potentially profitable public services, including health care and education along with parts of the power system. And fighting the privatization of public services is already a priority for the island’s progressive forces.

Progressive labor has an important role to play. In late October 2017, before the announced privatization, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) organized a global labor conference call on the future of Puerto Rico’s power sector. On the call was Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, the president of Puerto Rico’s principal power sector union, the Electrical Industry and Irrigation Workers Union (UTIERxii). UTIER represents workers at PREPA. Jaramillo called for a “just transition” for the sector, which must move from being based almost entirely on fossil fuels to a distributed renewables-based system. Jaramillo added, “PREPA is a public good that belongs to the people and not to the politicians.” xiii

The recent attacks on PREPA were, says UTIER, part of a broad-based campaign against anything public. The predatory interventions of hedge-fund interests caused a large portion of PREPA’s already declining revenues from power generation to be used to repay debts, meaning less funds were available to maintain and improve the utility’s aging infrastructure. UTIER maintains that the island’s government, the Board of Fiscal Control, and PREPA’s upper management collectively impeded the post-Maria recovery effort in order to make privatization seem like a positive step. xiv

Following the announcement that PREPA would be privatized, UTIER denounced the plan, stating “For decades we have warned how various administrations have undermined workers and intentionally damaged the infrastructure of PREPA. This was intended to provoke the people’s discontent with the service in order to privatize, to strip us-the people-of what is ours.” xv For UTIER, PREPA’s actions before and after Maria reflect the corruption of the public service ethic that has corroded PREPA from within. Top management often looks to privatization as a means of escaping publicly regulated salary structures. For example, the privatization of Con Edison in New York in 1998 saw the pay levels of its top management climb astronomically. Just prior to the lock-out of the Utility Workers Local 1-2 in July 2012, CEO Kevin Burke was pulling down an $11 million annual salary.

PREPA, said Jaramillo, needs to be reclaimed politically to serve the public good. It’s estimated $9 billion debt should be cancelled or renegotiated. A reformed, transparent, and democratically controlled PREPA can then work with communities to develop distributed solar power under public and local-level control. These sources would need to be connected to a reliable grid–one that can serve all the people equally. Such a restructuring will take a number of years. Microgrid systems under community control have real potential, but they should not become a means for wealthier communities to generate power for themselves and then expect to come back on to the grid when the sun stops shining or the batteries run out, and storage technologies are expensive and still relatively untested.

Simple Economics

With the old public systems, the cost of electricity was tied to the costs of installing, maintaining, and upgrading the system. Such systems worked fine–and they would work for large-scale renewables too. Everyone was connected. Most of the territorial U.S. was electrified as a result of the New Deal and the development of publicly owned and operated rural cooperatives, almost 900 of which still exist today. Since World War II, most of the global South has been electrified by way of public electrification programs that were set up as national and human development projects, and not as a way of making money for energy companies and hedge funds.

But what about the costs? Here several factors need to be considered. First, a report prepared for Rosselló and FEMA from Navigant Consulting estimated that rebuilding and upgrading Puerto Rico’s grid will cost as much as $18 billon. xvi If funds are committed to this effort, they will surely come from public sources and therefore should not be used to simply clear the path to privatization and profiteering. Rosselló’s plan to privatize key parts of PREPA will be a three-year process, thus presenting a scenario where private companies will have a rebuilt and upgraded grid handed to them on a platter.

Second, the cost of public renewable power is lower than would be the case under a system of PPAs, where borrowing and transaction costs are much higher, and profits are then added on top. As much as they make the headlines, figures like Musk and Branson are not the pioneers of renewable energy (Branson has made his money from airlines and buying up once-public railway systems). Globally, publicly owned development banks have been driving renewables. Ironically, private companies have made their money significantly due to low-interest loans–because the lenders are not motivated by profit, but are pursuing policy commitments such as emissions reductions and clean-energy targets.

Third, in many parts of the world the public is already paying for renewable power, but the benefits typically go to private companies. In the U.S., wind and solar power received 54 percent of federal energy subsidies in 2013, but produced only 4.5 percent of total U.S. electricity. xvii The subsidies come in the form of tax credits, which means that incentives to encourage renewables are paid for by the public when states impose taxes in order to make up for the tax revenue lost through subsidies. If renewables were deployed as a public service there would be no need for incentives–solar and wind would simply be public infrastructure, and job numbers would actually grow as a result of scaled-up deployment.

Public renewable power may or may not be cheaper than power generated from coal or gas, but it will certainly be cheaper than renewable power generated for private gain. The public utility, PREPA, can be reclaimed and restructured in order to ensure, first, that the energy transition can be planned and implemented over a period of years and that renewable sources of energy serve everyone–and not just those who can afford solar panels, microgrids, and battery systems. Space can be created so that communities have a real voice in the installation, operation, maintenance, and management of local energy systems with a strong emphasis on conservation and efficiency. But public-worker control of the overall service is also important, because this is where decisions about the direction of the island’s energy future will need to be made. The goal here is not to sell electrical power to the grid for profit, but to make sure systems are operating well and are responsive to public needs and concerns.

The people of Puerto Rico may come up with another way of doing the energy transition. But they must be given a choice-and that includes the choice to keep the power system fully in public hands.

viii Microgrids are small-scale power grids that can function independently of the larger transmission system. So if there is a problem with the centralized generation and main transmission lines, users can still-under certain circumstances-continue to access electricity

When a group of hurricanes got together in the late summer 2017, a crazy thing happened. Climate change became a major political issue again. The National Climate Assessment (denounced as “doom porn” by the climate change deniers) had some weeks earlier provided its assessment of what is happening to climate in the United States and what could well happen in the not too distant future.1 But how many record-breaking hurricanes does it take to back up the sewage system known as American politics? Were Hurricane Harvey’s seventeen trillion gallons of rainfall not enough to sufficiently irrigate demands for measures strong enough to deal with this country’s world-beating contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs)? And are not Puerto Rico’s biblical levels of torment not severe enough to warrant climate change to be declared a national emergency?

Leftward Tide

Encouragingly, in the turbulent weeks before deadly storms ripped through hundreds of towns and communities across the Caribbean and the southern United States, progressive Democrats, along with Independent Bernie Sanders, threw down a climate policy challenge to both Congress and the present Administration. Two bills have been submitted that, while an act of defiance at this stage, signal a determination to make sure that ambitious action on climate change is central to the political agenda of the Party’s progressive wing. Although aspirational, these bills indicate a willingness to respond to the Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda, one that is anchored in climate change denial, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, and a push to export the United States’ considerable surpluses of gas, oil, and coal to meet rising global energy demand. The bills may appear to be “gesture politics” in the context of the present Congress, but they also reflect a rising “Paris from below” sentiment in key states like California and New York.

Driven by a Sanders-like sense of hope, the two bills are an attempt to look beyond Trump and the present Republican domination of Congress and the majority of state legislatures. The oceanic tides may continue to rise, but the political tides will sooner or later turn—and we’d better be ready.

Pledges and Resistance

The first of the two bills was introduced in April 2017 by Senators Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, and Ed Markey. It calls on the United States to transition 100 percent off of fossil fuels by 2050. The “100 × 50” Act would impose new federal mandates requiring “zero carbon” vehicles, while barring federal approval of oil and gas pipelines. The act proposes an auction of “climate bonds” that would raise money to support renewable energy projects.2

The House bill, submitted by Tulsi Gabbard on September 7, 2017, along with six other representatives seeks to end fossil-fuel use in the United States as early as 2035—a full fifteen years earlier than the 2050 target date proposed by Sanders and Merkley. Titled “Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act” (OFF Act), the more ambitious OFF Act would also mandate the United States to transition to 80 percent clean renewable energy by 2027 and 100 percent by 2035.

Both bills are strong in terms of “just transition” protections for workers, and provide for job training for low-income Americans and Americans of color. The OFF Act requires that people in impacted communities have a leading role in developing clean energy plans, and provides for a new Center for Clean Energy Workforce Development.

Before Denial, Dishonesty

Most important, the two bills depart significantly from the approach taken by both mainstream Democrats and the Obama White House. Liberals like to think President Obama was a forceful leader on climate change, or he at least deserves credit for trying his best. After all, he ruled against the Keystone XL pipeline. And did he not get noticeably misty whenever he talked of rising sea levels or was responding to weather-related disasters like Sandy?

But it’s important not to sugarcoat the Democratic Party’s record during the Obama period. In 2009, Democrats Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Ed Markey proposed a House bill that narrowly passed in the House, but failed in the then Democrat-controlled Senate. The bill focused on bringing emissions down 83 percent by 2050 by introducing an economy-wide “cap and trade” system under which the federal government would set a cap on total GHGs. However, the interim target for reductions was only 17 percent by 2020 based on 2005 levels.3 It is the interim target that requires actions in the here and now, whereas a 2050 target is essentially someone else’s problem. Clearly, the 2020 target was not consistent with reaching the 83 percent reduction, and this irresponsibly trepidatious approach set the tone for the ensuing years.

With the failure of the Senate bill, all eyes turned toward the White House. It’s important to recall the State Department’s notorious actions at the December 2009 U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen. Obama’s special envoy Todd Stern insisted that a binding global agreement was not necessary, and a voluntary “pledge and review” approach would do just fine. Stern proposed the same weak 17 percent by 2020 emissions reduction target, and managed to move the goal posts so that U.S. emissions were measured based on 2005 levels, flagrantly disregarding the internationally agreed 1990 benchmark. This wiped from the board a 12 percent increase in U.S. emissions from 1990 to 2005.

Six fruitless years later, at the 2015 Paris talks, the United States pledged to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, describing its commitment to be “both ambitious and fair.”4 Given the U.S.’ off the charts emissions levels, both current and cumulative, it was anything but.5

Of course, when viewed alongside Trump’s perverse promise to “tear up” the Paris Agreement, the former President’s climate record looks bold and progressive. But it was, in fact, neither. Whereas Trump today prefers flat out denial, Obama told the world that the United States was “the global leader” in fighting climate change—a blatantly dishonest assertion.6 Obama also said the Paris Agreement “will mean less of the carbon pollution that threatens our planet.” This claim was also plainly false. The “national contributions” made in Paris will lock in rising emissions until 2030 at the earliest, even if all of the 192 countries reach their targets.7 The White House knew this to be the case, but it did not stop someone deciding that it was okay for the president to say the opposite.

Breaking with the Past

In contrast, the goals of the two recent climate bills are informed by the core findings of the scientific community. The “100 × 50” bill of Senators Sanders and Merkley was the first bill introduced in Congress to propose turning the “end fossil fuels” target into law.8 For Sanders and Merkley, it’s 2050; for Gabbard, it’s 2035. These targets are not arbitrary, but reflect the scientific consensus and the policy priorities the science community has helped develop, principally, the need to deploy large-scale renewable energy in accordance with clearly stipulated time frames. The fifteen-year discrepancy between the two bills, however, is not insignificant. The House’s “OFF Act” is more mindful of the “well below 2 degrees Celsius” target adopted in Paris and is therefore more ambitious, whereas the “100 × 50” Senate bill is more consistent with the scenarios developed after 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Timetables aside, the two recent bills are different from the Obama period in that they mandate moratoria on any new coal, oil, and gas projects (extraction and infrastructure, including power plants, pipelines, and export terminals). Unlike the Democrats’ Obama-era legislation, the bills focus on the source of the emissions (the extraction and burning of fossil fuels) and not just how to deal with the consequences (global warming pollution, or GHGs, etc.). If either bill became law, it would amount to a declaration of war on fossil-fuel interests, because much of the present-day stock market value of coal, oil, and gas companies is based on their below-the-ground reserves.

The “100 × 50” Act proposes a “cap and trade” carbon trading scheme, but, in contrast to the 2009 legislation proposed by Waxman and Markey, it is not the bill’s main provision.9 Significantly, the “OFF Act” goes further and rejects carbon trading altogether because it has “proven ineffective in significantly reducing emissions. This rejection is enormously significant in that it essentially acknowledges that the “polluter pays” policies normally preferred by market-focused Democrats are simply not capable of delivering the levels of emissions reductions the science says are required.

Beyond Ambition Fixation

Both climate bills have been praised for their ambition. For some years now, the global labor and environmental movements have rightly insisted that the reduction of emissions follow the pathways determined by the best scientific evidence. When governments or multilateral global agreements fail to do this, then the appeal for “more ambition!” rings from the rafters.

Ambition surely has its place, but committing to a crash diet on the morning of January 1 is one thing, being fifty pounds lighter in time for the July 4th weekend is something else altogether. Strangely, the difference between aspirational targets and actual accomplishments is not always acknowledged by leading green nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). According to one, “The OFF Act ensures that the U.S. make a just transition to 100 percent clean renewable energy by 2035 (and 80 percent by 2027).” But, if history is any guide, instructing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or other agencies to pursue such a massive transformation will probably not “ensure” anything. Mandating electricity retailers to source 80 percent of their power from renewables does not answer the question how that power might be produced, integrated into the grid, or who will do the work. Will the EPA be given the necessary powers to intervene in energy markets in a manner similar to the Rural Electrification Administration during the New Deal? As every archer knows, a target without a bow and arrow will, for sure, remain just that.

The implementation issue therefore goes to the heart of challenges facing progressive climate policy. At least twenty states have adopted both the “80 percent reduction by 2050” emissions reduction target and have set mandatory energy efficiency goals. In June 2017, the U.S. Council of Mayors said their cities, 250 in total, would run entirely on renewable energy by 2035.10

At the risk of stating the obvious, the more ambitious the targets, the harder it is to answer questions about how they will be reached. “100 × 50” is the more conservative of the two bills, but getting the U.S. 100 percent off of fossil fuels by 2050 will be a very heavy lift. The OFF Act’s “80 percent renewable energy by 2027” would, in just a decade, mean a roughly tenfold scale-up of wind and solar power from its current 8 percent level.

And the 80 percent by 2027 target also includes the transport sector, which will mean cars and trucks will also need to be powered mostly by renewable sources of power—thus requiring a massive increase in the amount of electrical power generated in the United States from renewable sources. Energy efficiency and storage systems each have a huge role to play, but the levels of investment are presently far too low to meet the needs of such a transformation.

Taking Ownership

The fact that progressive Democrats and Independent Senator Sanders have submitted ambitious bills to Congress is to be welcomed, as is the break with the “America is leading the way” myth cultivated by President Obama and Secretary Clinton. But turning an ambitious science- based approach to climate change into transformational pathways will require a decisive shift toward expanding social ownership and democratic control in key sectors, particularly the power sector, and transport, as well as a more publicly driven approach to financing the energy transition.11 Accomplishing a comprehensive energy transition in just two or three decades will require, among other things, careful planning, cooperation, and adequate levels of research and development (R&D)—the kind of things private markets and their for-profit calculations have, with stunning consistency, failed to deliver.

For labor and its allies, there is a compelling need to go much further than ensuring strong “equity provisions” for communities of color and labor protections and standards. Important as these are, we cannot afford to leave it to others (including private investors and corporations) to shape the speed and direction of the transition. The past decade has shown us that those presently in charge are not capable of doing what needs to be done.

The bills recently submitted to Congress therefore constitute the starting point for the debates among progressives in labor and other social movements on how to engage workers and communities on addressing climate change in a way that can offer the best chance of stabilizing the climate and controlling temperatures over the longer term.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.